Will Obama be a one term president?

When he was elected you thought he would be another Regan but now you have to wonder? Might he actually really be another Jimmy Carter/George Bush Snr? What do we think?

 

Obama right now is in better shape than Reagan was at the same point in his presidency. He'll be fine, and you can expect him to win re-election in 2012.

 

I think 'It's the economy stupid' as Clinton said. If it turns upwards (as seems likely) he should be ok. The democrat party as a whole however looks like they'll take a pasting in the midterms

 

This exactly.

And if I had thought for .2 nanoseconds that Obama would be another Reagan, I would have never voted for him. I grew up under one Reagan, and I'll put the US in my rear view mirror if another one gets elected. I won't allow my children to watch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while people praise that as a good thing.

I didn't think Bush 43 would win re-election. He barely scraped through in 2000 and by 2004, I knew several people who had voted for him then but were not going to do it a second time. The gay marriage bans on the ballots in many states helped him and may have pushed him over the top, but still, he did win re-election.

I don't know what will happen with Obama, but if the economy improves and this health care bill works (at least the provisions that are going to take effect right away, which if I remember correctly, including expansion of coverage to all children with pre-existing conditions), he'll win again. Another factor to take into account will be the strength of the Republican candidate.

 

The recession is purportedly over, and job losses have perhaps stabilized, but for average people there really isn't much of an improvement. The housing market remains at more or less a standstill. Despite low prices, credit is difficult to get for purchasers and houses are difficult to move for sellers.

Without a significant upturn in employment, I don't think Obama will have much of a chance. His legislative agenda is going to be that much harder in the second half of his first term anyway, so economic improvement is going to be the key.

 

I think he will be re-elected even if unemployment is still high, as long as it is significantly lower than it is right now. Lets look at the polls. He is a year into his Presidency with job loses just starting to decline and his legislative agenda stalled until the Democrats make up their minds about it. And despite that, his ratings hover around 50% on Gallup, with views on him as a person substantially higher.

People were starting to suggest 11% unemployment, but since the new year it has dropped below 10% and is expected to keep falling. His plan to pull out of Iraq looks on track now that the elections have gone relatively well, and the Afghan campaign seems to be doing okay. Americans will like all of those things. People would need to feel that a change of leadership is needed, and I don't see such a desire emerging during a recovery.

There are always surprises though.

Jabba your posts are always so downtrodden! You need to cheer up man!

edit posting this interesting article which was on Politico about a week or so ago.

 

It depends on who the Republicans nominate.

If it's Sarah Palin or another Tea Partier, then Obama will win big, no matter how bad the economy is. Many independents, and even Republicans, could never vote for her.

If it's someone boring and lackluster, or someone who does not seem genuine, then Obama will win re-election unless the economy gets substantially worse. (thinking about Pawlenty and Romney here)


Tom Delay isn't heling them: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be"

 

Assessing Obama's chances of reelection has nothing to do with either pessimism or optimism, DG, unless of course we're discussing the pessimism/optimism of the people who are going to turn out to vote.

 

If jobs increase again in time enough for it to be relatively new news on the campaign trail, Obama may be able to keep what he won in 2008. More likely he may lost one or two states, but I think it might be enough for him to retain, say, Virginia.

But there's a few things you have to factor into this. Firstly if the job situation doesn't improve it won't be good. Secondly even if it DOES improve, and improves too early, another subject will become topical as a reason to disapprove of Obama. Like any president he'll always be failing somewhere, and it's very likely the focus will merely migrate to whatever that failing is. Largely becuase right-wing media will broadcast it to right-wing and moderate listeners, who will then repeat it (although possibly not initially think much of it) at which point more legitimate news agencies will repeat it since it has gained attention, and misperception will quite likely carry the day. What would save Obama then only be if he were pitted against someone even less liked. Which is actually probably easier than it sounds despite the fact we have a lot of people in the supposed running that would backfire against the GOP (Sarah Palin among them).

At this point though, even if the job numbers improve were the Republicans to field somone like Mitt Romney they would still have a distinct advantage. For unfair reasons that Romney would, admittedly, be no more responsible for than John McCain was responsible in garnering only 4% less of the popular vote than Obama.

Unless the timing is exactly right so that there's no oppertunity to move the topic of conversation, Obama will have an uphill battle keeping what he got last time around. And even if he were to succeed in unnumerable areas from his predecessor AND he was pitted against Sarah Palin, he would STILL be unlikely to make any gains from what he had in 2008.

In short, his current wins -- and perhaps one state or two at max -- are the most any Democrat can hope to win in any current Presidential election. Republicans, of course, can potentially win everything except the District of Colombia.

 

Exactly. It's the age old problem for the democrats. Obama has to run a campaign every bit as shrewd and well-managed and tight as the last one. And he has to succeed on more of his agenda. And he has to be lucky in terms of the timing of economic recovery.

Republicans have to field a real candidate who is not as old as John McCain, not as stupid as Sarah Palin and not as Mormon as Mitt Romney, have to avoid letting the Christian right capsize their chances (e.g. by refusing to accept a Mitt Romney, or by letting a Sarah Palin pile up wins in a primary).

 

As of now, I would say yes he will be re-elected. But it is way too early to worry about that, Dems needed to focus on 2010.

 

Republicans have to field a real candidate who is not as old as John McCain, not as stupid as Sarah Palin and not as Mormon as Mitt Romney, have to avoid letting the Christian right capsize their chances (e.g. by refusing to accept a Mitt Romney, or by letting a Sarah Palin pile up wins in a primary).

Actually I think even of these 3, only one, Palin, would be a natural deal-breaker with the American public.

McCain would be a deal-break as well right now, but that's simply because he's run and lost. That's significant enough, I think, for him to have insifficent backing were he to run in 2012, which he won't. I think another kick at the can would go badly for him becuase people would remember his earlier failures. But I don't think age would hold back people from voting for him.

Mitt Romney just has a hell of a time getting through the GOP primaries, I think. Once he were established as mainstream I think it would be tough for Obama to get religious voters in the south on his side DESPITE he's an established Christian and Romney is a Mormon.

Much like the fact that I don't think people who are irrationally against Obama are really racist despite thier strange reasonings, I don't think voters are against Romney specifically because he is Mormon: it's just that this is where the emotional, inherited reason lies.

 

What kind of campaign do you think he can run though? His last campaign was so successful because he was able to foster an expectation which was detached from reality. How do you think he'll be able to engineer a similar campaign while at the same time, acknowledging his failings? I don't think this a exactly a negative against Obama personally, but I'm not sure how his image translates into being the incumbent President.

The Sunday Chicago Tribune ran an interesting article about how the "green" organizations are becoming short with the Obama administration. Five different conservation groups, lead by the Sierra Club, just sued the federal government over a host of related issues.

Apparently, this administration has added the fewest species to the endangered species list than any administration over the last 30 years, including Bush's administration. This year the government is slated to add more, but I think it represents a level of frustration. As the Sierra Club representative said- "Conservationists expected more from Obama..." I think that might be an overall theme for many different issues.

It's the disconnect that Obama is going to have to acknowledge and campaign on this time around. It's not unwinnable, but it's a risky game to play.

 

I imagine that Obama will run a campaign which focuses on the problems he inherited from Bush which will then address how he has fixed those problems and if he hasn't fixed them yet then he weill detail how he is going fixing those problems - he will use the economy like Bush used the Iraq war and the war on terror, that is, don't risk changing the government in the middle of something so crucial to national survival. In other words, he will deflect.

 

Although I'd like to respond to mr44 atm I'm busy. Although I would note my oversight in saying that Obama's and established Christian while Romney is a Mormon -- my bad on catagorization without thinking: Mormons are also, of course, Christians.

Never trust an athiest to organize your religions...

 

I think he will probably get re-elected.

Obama has good ideas for America, his big problem is getting them done. Having a house that votes against him all the time makes it harder for him to pass things into law.

I think it's unfair to judge him on not fixing things that will take years to fix. People want instant results and no-one can deliver that.

It's hard for me to comment fully as I'm not a US citizen and I don't know all the logistics of the US system.

 

I'll think that he will be re-elected. His main problem as a president so far, being too conciliatory and avoiding confrontations, really stop him achieving many of his stated goals (I think he really should learn to twist the arms of his opponents and allies too when necessary, to be a bully if achieving the goals demand it) but it does serve him in elections. And if the Republicans go and elect as their candidate some bellicose attack dog, then all Obama has to do to win is to play the role of Mr Nice Guy. No landslide, I guess, but still victory.

 

At the moment, re-election looks very slim for Obama. His programs have gotten little accomplished in the eyes of the nation, and the Republicans are definitely taking advantage of that fact. Re-election depends on how the next year or two goes; after that, the nation will most liekly decide if it wants him back as President or if they want a new one. During the election process, re-election will depend on Obama's successes and failures and how strong the Republican candidate is.

 

His most important proposed programs haven't passed yet (healthcare reform, financial reform, environment/energy). Conservative think tanks admit the stimulus package did help the economy recover and stablize, even if all the jobs haven't come back yet. (the hard truth is most of the lost jobs will not come back, and that won't change no matter what party is control of the congress/presidency, we have to look in new areas)

I don't see what the Republicans have to offer besides more deregulation, privatization (including proposed privatization of Social Security and Medicare), tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, all mixed into Christian conservative sentiment that doesn't respect separation of church and state and is anti-gay rights, and not particularly welcoming to minorities and women or the young, nor open-minded/flexible to people with diverse opinions and views.

 

Running on the "No platform" may win seats in 2010 for the GOP. But I doubt it is going to work in 2012, sooner or later the GOP is going to have to offer up credible answers towards fixing the nation's problems.

 

I always thought the idea of Reganomics was to make the rich richer and let the poor ride on their coatails? He must have been doing somthing right, he not only got re-elected but so did George Bush Snr after him?

 

Never underestimate the extent to which getting shot played into Reagan's popularity. That "made" him president to the same extent that 9/11 "made" George Bush president.

 

Never underestimate the extent to which getting shot played into Reagan's popularity. That "made" him president to the same extent that 9/11 "made" George Bush president.

That certainly did a lot to get people to buy into the myth. Had Ford been actually shot and survived earlier in the incident with Squeaky Fromme, probably the political landscape today might be somewhat different.

I don't rightly know if it actually WAS Reagan's intention to make the rich richer. That is essentially what his policies created -- I'm of the belief the positive momentum at the end of his turn was due to a natural turn of the economy that he neither truly aided or prevented -- but was it his particular INTENT?

I don't really think it was. Reagan would have to have a radically different temperment to have pushed that hard for something that actually made life harder for the middle-income voter. If something like this were true, Nixon would have already tried it. But Nixon wasn't as big on economic theories and he got along well enough with corporate America.

I think Reagan had just by that time adopted traditional Republican fiscal thinking, had read a few things in his time, and had come to conclusions that essentially rolled back everything that was learned by the failures of Herbert Hoover. Or at least temporarily. And so the US to a certain degree began living as it had in the 20s in terms of fiscal policy. Not totally of course: there was just too much around by then for Reagan to have addressed in his 8 years and even he didn't want to change EVERYTHING -- but it was the overall psychology of non-intervention. And like the 20s and further back, there wasn't really a way of noticing anything was particularly wrong until a "crash" occurred and pulled everything with it.

Reagan started this. And neither Bush Snr. or Clinton saw any reason to change it once they were in power. And if they had, they might have run into stiff resistance. Clinton in fact, wound up furthering it along.

Thankfully becuase of the experience of the Great Depression, even Republicans will throw thier strategy out he window when economic reality comes calling and begin to spend, spend, spend in order to save jobs and stimulate the economy.

My standpoint is that at the end of the day, Reagan REALLY didn't know what he was doing for all the changes he was trying to make. He knew enough to sound like he made sense to a layman, but when laying it out for the majority of accredited economists it just wasn't right at the end of the day.

However the fact that he didn't intentionally make the rich richer doesn't endear him to me much since this was, in the end, the chief effect.

 

I agree with everything Gonk said, except that I think Reagan did intend to make the rich richer--maybe with the (asinine) idea (which didn't work) that the poor would ride along on their coattails, but he wanted to make the rich richer.

I also think that a big part of the reason he got re-elected was due to Mondale. The Democrats could not have picked a weaker candidate if they had had the Republican National Committee choose their candidate for them. Mondale not only had the stigma of having been Carter's VP, but he ran a campaign promising to raise taxes on everyone. That's political suicide. Plus, Reagan was a very charming person and like-ability always helps a candidate no matter what his or her policies are. Just ask Hillary Clinton. Virtually the only difference between her and Obama was like-ability, their stance on the summer gas tax break, and the fact that Obama spoke out against the Iraq War while Hillary was voting for it in the Senate.

As far as Bush 41; yes, he was Reagan's VP, but he also did a sufficient job separating himself from Reagan (a better job, in fact, than Gore did with Clinton), and called his trickle-down policies "voodoo economics." He also had the advantage of having a very weak, unpersonable opponent. My stance on Reagan is pretty well known around here, but I supported Bush 41 in 1988. Dukakis was not a good candidate.

 

Did the poor actually get poorer under Reagan, anakin_girl? With the exception of the initial Reagan recession, which was induced by the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker and not President Reagan, the povery rate was about the same as it was under the Clinton era. In addition, real median incomes went up, unemployment declined, and the rate of increase in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, slowed dramatically (primarily due to Chairman Volcker, admittedely). While it's true that the gap between the rich and poor rose substantially during this time period, and whether good or bad, the President did reduce benefits overall for the poor, such as grants, loans, welfare, and etc., but I'm not sure if it's fair to say the poor necessarily became poorer. However, there's probably a metric that I'm missing here that explains the other point of view. Perhaps you can't point me in the right direction. . .?